this is what I have.

November 7
Today we went to a place where they showed us about how they made chocolate. It really wasn’t worth seeing and the chocolate was super expensive. We got out of the bus and ate our lunch in the cold November drizzle.
We visited the Cathedral, which is like any other one and then looked at a tapestry from 1070 which told the history of William the Conqueror. Then we watched a video about the making of the tapestry and then slept through the next two showings because our bus driver wasn’t going to come back until later.

November 8
I forgot to mention Frank in my last posts. Every day on my way to and from the main building I get to stop and pet Frank. Frank is a golden retriever. He lives in the backyard of a bakery and he will stand up with his front paws over his fence and let you pet him. We don’t know his real name so we named him Frank because the ottoman (which is a dog) in Beauty and the Beast was played by a guy named Frank.
Today we hopped on the bus at 9, skipping French language and culture lessons. We went in Caen, where William the conqueror’s chateau is. There is a big farmers market in Caen and we spent a good hour looking through it. Most of the touristy stuff was around the edge and then there was a ton of food stands in the center.
We briefly went into the fine art museum but honestly it was a boring one. The history of Normandy museum wasn’t that great either. We saw a bunch of rusted spearheads and some butter churns. We came back to base to eat our lunch and I took a 3 hour nap and the verandah. It was raining most of the time and it was real nice to take a nap inside.

November 9
Today we set out for St. Michaels, which is a big castle/abbey on the coast of France. It is the second biggest tourist attraction in France after Paris. We had an audio tour of the buildings. The view is great. I wish I could have been there at high and low tide. When we were there it was low tide so there is sand for miles before it reaches the ocean. When the tide is really high it covers where we parked our bus and leaves only a small road out to the castle. In the past the abbey would become an island at high tide and then would only be connected by a land bridge at low tide.
The abbey is named after the archangel Michael. Supposedly he appeared to a local bishop twice in dreams and told him to build an abbey. The abbey was started in the year 708 and has been added on to slowly over the years. The abbey has never been taken by force.
We had plenty of time to eat lunch and visit the abbey. After the visit we said goodbye to the last of our instructor from Merville-Franceville and were off to Brittany.
We arrived in Lorient at 6:00 and were quickly separated and sent off with our host families. Every student had a different family. I am staying with Christopher Hellec. He speaks decent English though he is hard to understand. Neither of his parents speak English so communication will be hard.
For dinner we had stew and then a cheese course and then a banana for desert. I showed Christopher my pictures from the trip and we played a few facebook games with each other. I went to bed a little early because I have to register for classes at 3:30 in the morning.

November 10
I woke up at 3:30 to register and I got into all the classes I wanted. Almost everybody on the trip is trying to get into managerial finance and there were only 21 spots left when I was done registering. I saved one spot in the class for Jesse.
I woke up for the second time at 7:00. Christopher’s classes start at 8:00 every day. We had yoghurt and drinkable yoghurt for breakfast with a little pastry. The French don’t do much for breakfast.
Spencer was the first one at the school so I sat and talked to him as people slowly started coming in. It was an hour before the whole group got there. I guess Spencer has his own guest house and some very good English speakers.
We did a little meet and greet with some French students and ate crescents and coffee for a couple hours. The French spend a lot of time sitting around and talking. The room we were in was too small so we couldn’t move around and talk to new people very easily. It was an awkward situation.
From our second breakfast half of us went to a German class and the other half to a Spanish class. Obviously I was in the German class. I was surprised that the students there didn’t speak very good German. Tom was astounded. They had been learning German for 6-10 years. He said that two months at the Goethe institute would have been the equivalent to how much they knew. The German teacher really didn’t have much to talk about and it was not a very good class. We talked about the 20th anniversary of the Berlin wall falling, which was the day before.
We had lunch at the school. The cafeteria is run by Sodexho, which is the same food service provider that Bethel has. The food was nowhere near as good. I guess it was really overpriced too so the French students avoid eating there.
After lunch we had a long discussion with the French students who are coming to Bethel this spring about the differences between the US and France. Then we did pretty much the same thing with an English class.
Right now I’m hoping that dinner will be soon because it is almost 8:00. We are going to play trivial pursuit in English after dinner tonight and that sounds like fun. An English foster kid who stayed or is currently staying with my family showed up tonight. She speaks fluent French so now I have a good translator.

November 11

November 16
Point du Raz

November 17
Today was my last morning in Brittany. I got all of my stuff packed up and they took me to the train station. I said goodbye to Christopher and his mom. They stuck around for a bit and when they finally left Christopher started crying and he gave Tom a hug as we left. I guess Yan feels like he has to take him on the trip to the states this spring because of this experience.

November 18
We went to the Louvre today. We were there for almost two hours. Paul got all the way there before he realized that he forgot his museum pass. He had to go all the way back on the subway to get it. The people at the entrance didn’t even glance over at our passes as we went in, so maybe he didn’t have to go back for his.
We saw the Mona Lisa of course. Spencer and I made up commentaries some of the paintings we passed. There were some more interesting paintings here than there were at the museum we went to yesterday.
There is a street that goes straight from the Louvre to the Arch de Triumph. We walked this street and ate at a burger place on the way. Our group split up and some of us went shopping and the rest went right to the Arch. I didn’t want to shop so I went to the Arch right away. Our passes let us go all the way to the top and there’s a nice view of the Eifel Tower from the top.
After the arch we decided to take the subway to a modern art museum which had some interesting parts but wasn’t that great. We ran into another group of Bethel students here and chatted for a little bit. We had actually ran into them on the way to the arch as well.
There are some major soccer games going on tonight. Algeria won the first one and France won the second one. The Algerians made a bunch of noise and set off some flares. They were still driving around the city honking their horns at 2 in the morning.

November 19
Today is our long day of travel from Paris to Prague. We left our hotel at 8:00. Not much to say besides I read my book, watched some movies, and did a little homework on the way. We went through Frankfurt and Dresden on the way. We had about 50 minutes in Dresden so we looked around a little. It’s a very nice and modern city. It’s a nice contrast from Paris.
We took a bus from the train station to our hotel. It’s the same bus we will be using these few days and it will drive us all the way back to Mittersill. The hotel is a 4 star, but I wouldn’t call it luxurious. A lot of people are sharing double beds or sleeping on fold out chairs or couches. I’m rooming with Kenny and Dan Chang in the highest room in the hotel. Climbing 79 steps with my luggage wasn’t fun but it’s a nice room.

November 20
The original plan was to leave at 7 for our day but after so many hours of traveling, Tom let us sleep in a bit. The bus ride to the glass blowing factory was longer than I thought it would be. It was around 2 hours long. The glassblowing factory wasn’t really that great. They didn’t even know we were coming. The glassblowing wasn’t anything I hadn’t seen many times at the Renaissance festival. We ate lunch at a place where we could see some glassblowing, but it wasn’t set up very well.
The afternoon was spent at the Skoda factory, which was a bit of a letdown. It was a lot like the Opel tour we went on only the tour guide wasn’t as good. Really this day could have been cut out of the trip.

November 21
This morning we had a tour of Prague. Our tour guide Fredrick is a good guy. I think he’s a communist and he has some serious discussions with Tom during the tour. After our tour and lunch we had the rest of the day to do whatever we wanted. We looked around the city a little more and went to the Tesco.
For dinner we had a little buffet dinner on a boat. We went down the river for about 45 minutes and then came back up. The food wasn’t fantastic but it was fine. We walked around some more after the boat ride and I was starting to get tired. I went back to my room and finished my book. I guess I’ll have to start a new one on the way to the Schloss tomorrow.

November 22
We took our bus all the way to the Schloss today. It took somewhere around 6 hours. I slept some of the way and watched a movie. I must be getting used to traveling around because it was a really easy ride. We stopped at a truck stop diner for lunch. It felt really American only they had Austrian food.
When we got to the Schloss we all went back to our old rooms. It was almost like being home. We hooked up the projector in the classroom and watched “Away We Go”. It was a nice relaxing night after so much moving around.

November 23
We had class as usual but then we had some time to relax. I needed some time to do nothing after traveling so much. We watched “In Bruges” on the big screen.

November 24
We had a tour of the Nordica/Blizzard ski factory that is in Mittersill. I couldn’t hear the tour guide very well because it was in factory. It was really interesting how them make all of the designs for the skis and how different the wood was for each kind of ski. They don’t make any snowboards here, only skis.


November 25
Norm came and talked to us again. He rambles on an on so I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention. He’s a geneticist who’s been working for the UN for decades. We went to his house after dinner and had some time to chat. He had each one of us introduce ourselves. It’s weird when people talked about themselves because by this time I know them pretty well.
We watched the first episode of Band of Brothers which is really long. It’s a good thing we didn’t have class the next day. Some people want to watch the whole Band of Brothers series but I don’t think we’ll have time. I watched the whole thing back in Germany at the Goethe.

November 26
No class today because it’s thanksgiving. I got to sleep in and then do some reading for class and take a nap. Thanksgiving dinner was great. Tom found some turkeys at the supermarket and they cooked them up at the Schloss. We had mashed potatoes and stuffing and gravy. We all sat at one big long table.
That night we played sardines with all of the lights off in the Schloss. It was more fun scaring people than looking for the people that were hiding. We finished off the night with a dance party in the auditorium. Lots of fun.